Fenchurch Taps Moelis Dealmaker For New US Office

Shirin Aguiar

3 March 2022

Advisory boutique has opened a US office in New York which will be led by veteran investment banker John A Sipp (pictured).

With more than 30 years of experience, Sipp has served as a managing director at Moelis & Company for 10 years. Prior to this, he was a managing director at Credit Suisse where he headed American insurance group DLJ, working with Malik Karim, founder and chief executive of Fenchurch. Sipp’s career began at Goldman Sachs, where he was a founding member of its financial institutions group.

“Opening a US business is a natural evolution for Fenchurch given our involvement in numerous significant transactions with an international component and will enable us to support our clients’ global footprints. Many of the sub-sectors of financial services where we have built strong franchises in the UK and Europe are global, and a US office will add to our origination and execution capabilities,” Malik Karim, founder and chief executive of Fenchurch, said. “John’s extensive track record, deep sector expertise and broad set of trusted client relationships make him a powerful leader of our US operations.”

During his career, Sipp has led numerous merger, acquisition, divestiture, financing and advisory transactions across financial services industry sub-sectors, including insurance, asset management, specialty finance, and commercial banking. Recent firms he has advised include Navigators Group on its sale to The Hartford, Vida Capital on its sale to RedBird Capital Partners and Reverence Capital Partners, MetLife on its acquisition of Logan Circle Partners, Assured Guaranty on its acquisition of CIFG, GE Capital on the sale of its restaurant franchise finance assets and Transatlantic Holding on its sale to Alleghany Corp.

Sipp has a bachelor of arts in business administration with a concentration in accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

“I am looking forward to this opportunity to help build Fenchurch’s US business, leveraging its excellent reputation and blue chip client base. I have long admired the franchise that Fenchurch has built in UK and Europe. There is a big opportunity in the US market for a pure advisory business with deep, specialist sector expertise,” Sipp said.

Fenchurch have recently advised Investec Group on the £1.9 billion demerger of Ninety One Asset Management; Swiss Re on the £3.25 billion sale of ReAssure to Phoenix Group; and J.C. Flowers on the £1.49 billion sale of Interactive Investor to abrdn.

Fenchurch is an independently operated affiliate of Natixis, part of Groupe BPCE.